Before he was even born, Shawn insisted that we needed a real yard for Little Buddy to play and be a boy in. I thought he was ridiculous. It would be a long, long time before he'd really need a yard. (I loved that house. no rush to leave it). So while pregnant, we searched and searched for a house to buy with all our requirements AND a yard, all to no avail. When Little Buddy was two months old, I heard that some acquaintances were going to put their house on the market. I'd always loved that house. It seemed to have so much of what we wanted. Perfection central location. And a fantabulous yard.

We are now about four and a half years into living in that house. And I'll admit it. I was wrong.

No, he didn't really use the yard much that first summer (although I did burn a trench in the top square of our driveway circling it incessantly with LB in the stroller in an effort to occupy him and keep him from crying). But ever since, it has been childhood utopia as far as we can tell.

We have trees. Lots and lots of old, old established trees. I love that. And with all those trees comes a boy necessity: sticks. Lots and lots of sticks. We have wide open mostly flat space as well. Woods. Dirt. Rocks. The trees provide amazing awesome shade in the summer, so that we can use our back yard year round even on those hot, humid days. But we do pay for all of that come October and November.

Leaf season.

The leaves have begun to fall. It has been more fun every year so far with the kids. Every year they get more and more into the leaf piles. The Little Lady will randomly ask for Daddy to come home from work, so he can make another leaf pile.

Sunday before last was a nice warm day with glorious light and I couldn't help but document it.

And then I could have cried last night as I worked on prepping these images. I accidentally used the websized versions in creating the collages. Oh well. They probably won't look as great, but I don't have time to recreate all of that. Ugg.

"Only miracle is plain; it is the ordinary that groans with the unutterable weight of glory."-Robert Farrar Capon

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,Prone to leave the God I love;Here's my heart,O take and seal it;Seal it for Thy courts above.

I'm a sensitive introvert who finds such beauty in the ordinary, everyday moments in life. I seek light. I'm mesmerized by it. I photograph and share my images in the hopes that you can also be blessed by the beauty I find around me.

I could not be more proud of this kiddo. He spent his day working on google classroom assignments for the snow day, then piano practice, then I told him I was going to shovel the driveway. He joined me. We worked together for a long, long time. He never complained. He didn’t complain that I had the better shovel. He didn’t complain that it was tiresome and boring work. He didn’t complain that his sister wasn’t helping. He didn’t complain when he realized that having a long driveway means it takes a looooooong time to make progress against 14” of snow. He didn’t complain that he hadn’t had a chance to play in the snow yet today. He was in it for the long haul. When I told him to go to the house and tell his sister she needed to unload the dishwasher, he came back with two water bottles for us to drink. (He did complain thAt I made him wear gloves so he wouldn’t get blisters bc ain’t nobody got time for that for basketball games or piano recitals on Sunday!). I have no idea how long we had been at it when Shawn got home from work. He jumped in and we three worked for a while until I realized I wanted a picture to remember this and bailed. I’m so proud of the work ethic of this kid and his character in the midst of it.

Antics.

Light up the night 5k for the second year. The Boy got 2nd in his 10-14 age group. His was around 23:50. The Lady decided yesterday morning that she’d run it, too. So we did. I forgot to take a picture of us before the race though. Or at the race. So in the car while we waited for daddy in a parking lot it is. But I wanted to remember this race we ran together. I told her I wasn’t going to push her. We haven’t been running this fall once the cross country team failed to materialize, so she hasn’t trained at all. I wasn’t going to fight her the whole run. She ran the whole thing pushing ME! She didn’t complain once. She rocked it. even though she didn’t get an age group award I couldn’t be more proud that she chose to go out and do this Instead of sitting and watching. I think her time was around 32:40 which is about 1 min slower than her time last year. Not bad for not training.

We got home from the MS basketball game and I jumped into finishing laundry. I came out to find this scene of homework with The Lady. Then I walked back to check on The Boy and found the same scene. Exactly. We miss the sun.

Last weekend we found ourselves a giant tree.

We weren’t allowed to have cameras or phones out during our horseback riding. (Do you know how much that killed me???) but the super awesome guide dude who started out just in front of The Lady grabbed several shots of the four of us along the way. I was soooooooo thankful!

The whole morning was ‘off.’ I slept too late. I took the dogs out too late. I had to wait forever for the puppy to poop. I woke the kids late. I got The Lady in the shower late. I started cooking breakfast late. They started eating breakfast late. Then I spent their entire breakfast time looking for the cup of coffee that I’d poured before putting The Lady in the shower. I couldn’t find it anywhere.

The whole time I didn't know what to say. The whole time I didn't know whether this was happening for HER or for ME. Was I supposed to DO something with this? Or was I just supposed to be there, to be a calm presence, to listen? Was God trying to speak to my own heart through her words and her wounds? I felt almost panicked, not having time to think through all the options and what the one very right thing to do could be. I wish I could say I chose out of wisdom, but that's not true. I chose out of exasperation. I just tried to listen. To affirm her. To tell her I was sorry. So very sorry that it happened to her and she'd had to live through that.

I saw it the moment she walked in the door that Friday evening. Something was wrong. Not her normal 'I didn't get my way' kind of wrong but a deep, consequential wrong. In a millisecond I had time to think a thousand year's worth of thoughts.